Henderson Equity Partners has made a partial exit from its five-and-half-year-old investment in drug and chemical makers Jubilant Organosys. The PE firm has taken out its principal investment amount by selling a 1.61% stake in the company for Rs 88.9 crore on the BSE on Friday. Henderson, which sold the stake through its arm HPC (Mauritius) Ltd at Rs 347.73 per share, is currently 2 times its investment in Jubilant. The London-headquartered Henderson, which is
one of Europe's largest investment managers with more than $91 billion in assets, had a 3.86% stake in the firm on March 2010.
Henderson invested Rs 90 crore in Jubilant Organosys in December 2004 in a round where Citigroup Venture Capital International (CVCI) also participated. The shares were picked up at a price of Rs 825 a piece and resulted in an average cost of acquisition of Rs 165 a piece after
the stock split. So, currently the PE firm is 2X on its investment. CVCI had picked up around 5.82% for Rs 110 crore at that time and has also been exiting its investment. Jubilant has also raised funding from General Atlantic, which currently holds a 7.37% stake.
Jubilant, that raised Rs 387 crore through a qualified institutional placement in March this year, has been on the inorganic expansion path between 2005-08. It acquired US contract research organization Target Research Associates in 2005, and thereafter in quick succession also picked a majority stake in Belgium's Pharmaceutical Services Inc and US generic company Trigen Laboratories. In 2007, it acquired Hollister-Stier for $122.5 and went a step ahead by acquiring Canada’s Draxis Health for $255 million in April 2008.
Henderson also holds a 9.05% stake in HT Media, where CVCI was also an investor until its exit last year. Its most recent investment came last year when it invested Rs 80 crore in Genesis Colors Pvt Ltd (GCPL), the holding company of luxury fashion labels Satya Paul, Deepika Gehani, Shobhaa De and Bwitch!. It's other current investments in India include agrochemical firm Sharda Worldwide Exports and Hindustan Sanitaryware & Industries.
